Lecture III

Today I only wanted to call forth a feeling that by steeping oneself in this work, one realises that its depths are inexhaustible. Of this I can assure you: The Apocalypse is one of those writings in the face of which we learn true humility, true piety and through which we learn what the Indian esotericist calls Faith (Glauben). There is an experience which imparts this Faith to us in the deepest sense, and it is the following: After we have made efforts to understand such a writing, we believe, to begin with, that we know a little about it. But when we try to go into it still more deeply, as deeply as our powers allow, we find that our earlier interpretation was utterly childish. We realise that only now do we rightly understand what is said. And having done this and after a lapse of time again take up the book, the same experience is repeated. When this has happened several times, Shradda (Faith) comes to us. We steep ourselves again and again in such a writing, finding in it ever greater depths. That is the inexhaustible fount of such writings, which we can read with unshakable confidence but can never come to an end of their meaning. This is at the same time an urge to be humble in our attitude towards such writings, to delve into them more and more deeply. It will be clear to us then that if a really profound explanation seems to have been found, it will become ever more profound, in time to come. From this springs the consciousness that the greatest treasures given to man do not stem from human imperfection but from divine perfection, for this is verily divine wisdom, revelation of divine wisdom. Documents of wisdom are given to us in these books. Our understanding of them is still feeble, for these writings come to us, not from men, not from below, but from above, through the Gods. We have to develop to their heights. This gives the esotericist a feeling of the truth of words which must become part of his very life, must be his guiding maxim, and which must permeate theosophists ever more deeply. For it is not dogmatic knowledge, not doctrinal knowledge, that makes a man a theosophist, but the fact that he is steeped through and through with the wisdom of this utterance, that his whole attitude of mind and feeling is filled with the wisdom which it contains: The Highest—it is given from the Primal Beginning; The Highest—it will be understood through man at the end of the days.